Marvell Invests in Memoright For SSD Firmware Improvement

Posted by Nathan Kirsch| Wed, Jan 02, 2013 - 1:09 PM

Marvell (MRVL) has invested in Solid-State Drive (SSD) maker Memoright to form a strategic alliance, reports DigiTimes. According to industry sources, the alliance will look to combine the Marvell SSD controller and Memoright’s firmware technology to provide complete SSD solutions. It appears that LSI-Sandforce based processors are dominating the market in part due to the simplicity of the drives. It appears that having a locked down firmware with only a fixed number of settings that can be adjusted is turning out to be a winning solution for all parties involved. Will other SSD controller makers adopt this business model as well?

Marvell and US-based LSI are the two largest SSD controller IC vendors with a combined global market share of at least 70%, the sources indicated. While LSI provides SSD controller ICs equipped with complete firmware, Marvell provides SSD controller ICs which need clients to write their own firmware, the sources noted. Since many SSD suppliers are not capable of writing firmware, Marvell has encountered bottlenecks in marketing its SSD controller ICs, the sources pointed out.